Monster
by FanGirlMoment
Summary: Fitz shows up at Clare's doorstep late at night...   cant do descriptions too well sorry :D


HEY HEY HEY! Been meaning to do this for a while but never did . hope you like it!

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Clare had just finished her homework and was about to fix herself dinner when the phone rang. Thunder cracked outside. Jeez the storm outside was bad tonight.

"Hello?" She answered.

"Hey Clare," Alli was on the other line.

"Oh my goodness! Alli!" Clare had missed Alli since she left Degrassi a couple weeks ago. Degrassi just wasn't the same. "I haven't talked to you in ages!"

"That might be because you didn't call." Clare grimaced.

"I know, and I'm sorry, I've just been really busy with school and my parents and everything an-"

"Clare it's okay I'm not going to kill you!" Alli joked. "So what have I missed?"

"A LOT! Just a little bit ago-" Clare was about to tell Alli about the night of the theatre awards when the doorbell rang. "Uh… hang on a sec Alli the doorbell rang." She could hear Alli groan on the other line.

"Fine but be quick. I want all the gossip!"

"And you'll get it!" Clare joked. She ran over to the door, and opened it. She nearly had a heart attack at what she saw.

"FITZ?" Fitz was standing outside in just jeans and a sweatshirt in the pouring rain. No coat, no umbrella, nothing. He had a deep cut under his eye. Clare just looked at him surprised. Not just because he was there, but because of his expression. He looked sad and desperate. Scared.

"What about Fitz? Is he there? Clare?" Alli was yelling on the other line.

"I-I'll call you back Alli." She stammered and hung up. She tossed the phone on the couch and then turned to Fitz.

"What are you doing here?"

"I-I-I h-have nowhere e-else t-to go." He stammered. What he had done to Eli was awful but Clare felt bad for him.

"Fine." I relented. "Come in."

"Th-thanks" He said as she ushered him in and closed the door behind her.

"I'll be right back." Clare ran to the room her dad stayed in normally and pulled out one of his old pairs of sweatpants and a t shirt. She grabbed some blankets on her way back down the stairs. Fitz was still standing by the doorway soaking wet and shaking.

"Here," She said, handing him the clothes. She pointed to the bathroom down the hall. "Go get changed ok?" He nodded and walked to the bathroom. Clare progressed into the kitchen and pulled out the soup she was going to make herself along with a second can. She put one in the microwave and started a pot of coffee. Fitz was walking down the hall as she was putting in the second bowl of soup. She ran over and took his wet clothes and stuck them in the dryer. She set it for 30 minutes and walked back to find him standing there awkwardly, looking down at the floor.

"You can sit you know." He looked up at her. She got a closer look at his cut, and it looked awful. She went to get the first aid kit. When she got back, he was sitting on the couch shaking violently.

"Fitz?" She dropped the first aid kit next to him and ran to get the chicken noodle soup. She brought it back to him.

"C'mon eat something okay? It'll warm you up." He nodded, breathing heavily. He reached for the spoon but his hand shook so much that the spoon fell out of it onto the floor.

"I-I'm so sorry," he stammered, but Clare shushed him. She picked it up and placed it back on the table then grabbed the blankets and wrapped them around him. He nodded a thanks to her as she got up to check the thermometer for outside. -1 degrees Celsius (A/N just an fyi that's about 30 degrees Fahrenheit). Oh no. She rushed to the kitchen to fix a cup of coffee and brought it back to him.

"Can you drink this?" He nodded, and calmed himself down. Slightly trembling, he grabbed the cup of coffee and took a sip, nearly spilling it on himself. He got a bit more control over himself and finished the cup. It warmed him up considerably. He opened his mouth to talk.

"I-I'm s-s-s-sorry to c-come out of nowhere. You m-m-must hate me." He stammered. Clare looked at him worriedly.

"I don't… hate you, but how could you do that to Eli?"

"All I wanted was an apology." Clare stiffened at the way he said it. He didn't sound angry. He sounded…hurt. Sad.

"You came at him with a knife!"

"He poisoned me!" Clare started to say something, but didn't, so Fitz continued. "I tried twice to end this stupid battle. And twice he started it all over again! We could've left things as they were but emo boy kept taking it a step too far!" Clare swallowed. She knew Fitz was right, she just didn't want to admit it. She looked down.

"You didn't have to continue it either."

"He got me arrested! What was I supposed to do?"

"Let it go."

"I'm sorry Clare. I'm not that type of person. I can't just let things go. My mind doesn't work that way."

"How does your mind work then? Does it just register that you need to act like an ass all the time?" Fitz looked down, making Clare feel really guilty.

"I-I have…" Fitz swallowed. Clare looked at him confused.

"I have b-b…" Fitz paused, struggling to say it.

"What?"

"I have Borderline Personality disorder…" Fitz looked up at her, and she responded with a surprised look.

"You have what?"

"Borderline Personality Disorder. It basically means I can't regulate emotions. I'm impulsive and I make big mistakes all the time because I can't control myself, and I can't handle rejection well. When I brought the knife I wasn't planning to kill Eli. I didn't even know I was going to use it. You came and you asked if Eli and I could put the feud behind us and I said yes if he apologized. And we were about to drink when you made us switch cups."

"I didn't know he was using reverse psychology-"

"He shouldn't have poisoned any of the cups in the first place!" He snapped. Clare gulped, scared of what he might do. "We were gonna put the whole thing behind us and then he drugged me! I ran off humiliated and angry to my locker to get my coat- I just wanted to leave. You came by and started talking when I spotted the knife. I acted on impulse. I grabbed it and tried to hide it from you- I didn't want to scare you. You were actually being nice to me, but when you backed up looking at me like I was a freak something inside me snapped."

"Because… you can't handle rejection," Clare said slowly, connecting the dots. It started to make sense. Fitz nodded.

"I went looking for Eli. Even pissed I didn't plan on stabbing him. I just wanted to scare him is all. A-and you know the rest." Clare looked at him.

"How do you know you actually have borderline?"

"Tested… sort of. Even as a kid I was always acting out, being angry over any little thing. Overreacting. When my dad left when I was 6 I got even worse. My mom got so worried she took me to talk to someone. I remember hating it. This person acted like they knew me and it was sickening. I hated feeling like they were judging me. One day the lady said I should talk to a psychiatrist. A month after that the man diagnosed me. I've been taking meds for it ever since. They help, but they're not the best treatment, which is why sometimes I act like a… well like a dick. Psychotherapy's the best option but I refused to do it, so the only kind of treatment I have are the meds." Clare paused for a moment, taking it in.

"Why do you do drugs in the ravine if you're taking meds? Wouldn't that damage you?"

"I act on impulse, Clare. You get high to feel better. Until then you're messed up. Otherwise you wouldn't be taking them. You don't think about it. You just do it."

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you are the most understanding person I know, Clare."

"In the middle of the night? Why aren't you home?"

"My mom's boyfriend kicked me out."

"What about your mom?"

"She was too drunk when I came home. She had no idea."

"Her boyfriend can't just kick you out."

"I can't go back there! He gets violent!"

"Sounds familiar." Fitz winced, and Clare immediately regretted saying it. Low blow. She inwardly kicked herself. "I-I'm sorry."

"It's fine." Fitz sighed. "I deserved it." Clare looked around desperately for something to change the subject when she spotted his cut.

"Oh gosh I forgot I'm so sorry!" She scootched herself over onto the couch and looked at his cut under his eye. "What happened?"

"W-when I got home, Phil was pissed. He said I always got into trouble and he was tired of dealing with it. He doesn't know about the… anyway. I told him he couldn't say that to me and that I lived here, and he said not anymore. When I argued with him he punched me."

"That would leave a bruise most likely, not a deep cut."

"Ring." Clare winced, imagining that tear through Fitz's skin and shuddered. No wonder he couldn't go back. He was scared.

"Okay, this is gonna sting a little bit," Clare took some disinfecting spray and spritzed it multiple times on Fitz's cut. He winced. "Sorry." He shook his head.

"It's fine." Clare finished cleaning the cut up and put a bandage on it.

"All done."

"Thanks." Clare laughed.

"I can see why you came here." Fitz laughed too.

"Yea."

"You know Fitz, you're acting like you did at the dance before the whole…incident."

"Which is?"

"Not that bad." Clare smiled. "I know you're this big badass or whatever, but everyone has a sweet side." Fitz scoffed jokingly.

"Like what."

"Like when you had brought me that corsage?"

"My mom made me bring that."

"So you do everything your mommy says? Even if you brought it that didn't mean you had to give it to me. But you're mom didn't make you bring it, did she?" He looked sorta guilty and nodded.

"No, I bought it." Clare smiled.

"And when you said those nice things about me."

"I didn't do that-"

"You called me cute."

"So?"

"So… you're not bad."

"I am too!" Clare laughed. Fitz probably had no idea how cute he looked. Wait… since when did Fitz look cute? She shook the thought away, but another thought came into her mind. After Fitz left to go to his locker after being poisoned, she confronted Eli.

_ "What did you do?" She had said._

_ "You're the one who made us switch."_

_ "Oh don't you dare put this on me! Whatever Fitz does to you, you deserve it."_

Fitz said himself he wasn't going to hurt Eli… he just wanted to scare him. Weren't those Eli's intentions too? But Fitz put the school in lockdown. If Eli had been caught with the ipecac, that would've been an issue too. She even remembered telling Eli, _"Fitz isn't the monster you think he is."_ Clare felt lightheaded. This whole time she had been a hypocrite! She'd given them a double standard. A conflict of interest. She felt horrible.

"Uh… Clare? You okay?" Fitz asked, calling her out of her trance.

"Umm yea sorry, just zoned out I guess. I'm tired, so I'm gonna go to bed. Here we have a guest room you can sleep there." She gestured down the hall and he nodded and got up. "Follow me." She led him down the hall and stopped at the guest room.

It was a decent sized room with a closet, a small dresser, and a queen size bed.

"The bathroom is right down the hall- well you know that… um… my room is upstairs if you need me. If you get hungry you know where the kitchen is, okay?" Fitz nodded.

"Thanks Clare. You have no idea how much this means to me."

"Don't worry about it." Clare smiled and started walking down the hall. "Good night," she called from the steps. He responded with a "good night" and she walked up to her room. She changed into PJ pants and a cami and slipped into bed. She picked up her cell phone off the night table and called Alli, telling her everything that happened and asking for advice.

()()()

Fitz walked over to the bed and got under the covers, eyes burning from the tears he refused to let out. Clare was so nice. He didn't deserve this. His head was pounding as he closed his eyes. He prayed to God that everything would be okay. He hadn't prayed in a while. The last time he did was when his mom started dating Phil, and he prayed to God to make him leave. Fitz felt himself crying against his will and curled up in a ball. Morning couldn't come soon enough.

Yea that was long I know :D debated whether or not I should make this a really long one shot, or a medium two shot, or a short three shot. You can probably guess what I went with! Also, the italicized quotes/flashback things are actually what was said in the show! I'm crediting them right now so don't say I plagiarized! All rights belong to them, this is just fanfiction…

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Should I keep it as is or continue? What did you think? Is it too OOC? Is Fitz with BPD OOC and ridiculous? Lemme know :D

xoxo,

Logan


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